"I Have Much To Tell You"
Oedipus chose to rage against the truth instead and the tragedy took its course. Its playwright, Sophocles, knew the human disposition and we are so privileged to have the modern counterpart of Teiresias among us, who on a daily basis tread forward the world over to present to us the structures of how we are doing life.
In the new edition of International Journal of Comic Art, I am taking a look at two great visual voices of our day: Zapiro and Khalid Albaih.
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| Spread from the new edition of the International Journal of Comic Art, featuring Zapiro. |
As different as they may seem stylistically at first, they work from the same core of analysis, laying the structure open for us to see. They have been met with repercussions on all levels and still they would not have dreamt of doing otherwise, nor change their course going forward.
One means of avoiding their truth telling is the strategy of distraction, which the then President Jacob Zuma applied when finding himself in a drawn scene about to rape the Law of the land. Zuma chose to make maximum noise to detract from what the scene was all about:
"Art history is overflowing with rape scenes. Any National Gallery prides itself with a plentiful "The Rape of…" title list. They are mythological and historical scenes among each other, a high number of them political in nature when they were made, but all of them with nude women as their center. More often than not the rape is played out in combination with violence and murder with the every fraction of the female body at display while she is fighting for herself.
It never was about the men. In contrast, Zapiro's cartoon is so obviously not about the woman.
Zuma is literally exposing himself on his abuse of his office".
The protagonist, however, is not Zuma nor his presidential colleagues, but the spectator with whom the cartoonist is renewing the bond with each new cartoon:
"Art history is overflowing with rape scenes. Any National Gallery prides itself with a plentiful "The Rape of…" title list. They are mythological and historical scenes among each other, a high number of them political in nature when they were made, but all of them with nude women as their center. More often than not the rape is played out in combination with violence and murder with the every fraction of the female body at display while she is fighting for herself.
It never was about the men. In contrast, Zapiro's cartoon is so obviously not about the woman.
Zuma is literally exposing himself on his abuse of his office".
The protagonist, however, is not Zuma nor his presidential colleagues, but the spectator with whom the cartoonist is renewing the bond with each new cartoon:
"The very act of drawing it means the presence of conscience and engagement and since we do not find it in Zuma's actions, it reflects back to the line of communication between cartoonist and spectator. The recognition that things could and should be different is a language developed between cartoonist and spectator. The showerhead may have a visual presence, but the meaning literally goes over Zuma's head. The spectator, on the other hand, feels seen at the sight of the dripping showerhead".
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| Spread from the new edition of the International Journal of Comic Art, featuring Khalid Albaih. |
Cartooning is the insistence for us to think for ourselves, giving us the gentle drawn push to do so:
"(...) cartooning has a signal that is at once a code, a charge, and a necessity. This is what despots of any kind fear the most.
The visual signal is dedicated to the spectator: Their brain.
Their brain is shown in confrontation. It is the physical presence of possibility. IF it is used that is, so drawing it is a calling on the spectator to dare to think, think for yourself, look for yourself and keep your brain ignited, receptive, and alert.
Once ignited, it is reaching beyond itself, beaming, and in movement. There is an air of excitement about it, just as in forming a demonstration or revolution even. It is pure activism".
Louise C. Larsen, "I have much to tell you; Reflections on Cartoonists Zapiro and Khalid Albaih", John A. Lent (ed.), International Journal of Comic Art, vol. 21, No. 2, Fall/Winter 2019. Subscriptions/orders: http://www.ijoca.net.
